Error has made man so deep, sensitive, and inventive that he has put forth such blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge could not have been capable of it.

Many other such substitutes for war will be discovered, but perhaps precisely thereby it will become more and more obvious that such a highly cultivated and therefore necessarily enfeebled humanity as that of modern Europe not only needs wars, but the greatest and most terrible wars, consequently occasional relapses into barbarism, lest, by the means of culture, it should lose its culture and its very existence.

Where does one not find that bland degeneration which beer produces in the spirit!

What is it that endowed things with meaning, value, significance? The creating heart, which desired, and, out of its desire, created. It created joy and woe. It wanted to satiate itself with woe. We must take all the suffering that has been endured by men and animals upon ourselves and affirm it, and possess a goal in which it acquires reason.

I might believe in the Redeemer if his followers looked more redeemed.

A high civilization is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its primary prerequisite is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity.

All great men are play actors of their own ideal.